


Sunrise Highway

by leonshardt



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Friendship, Gen, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-05 02:07:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1801474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonshardt/pseuds/leonshardt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What Spy and Scout do after they get fired.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunrise Highway

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to gin for cheerleading.
> 
> contains one-sided Scout/Ms. Pauling and Spy/Scout friendship

There are only three working channels on the radio, which Scout takes to flipping through over and over on repeat until Spy finally snaps and screams at him to stop. Scout reluctantly does so, leaving the local news station on in hopes that the staticky reports would somehow alleviate the crushing boredom. Pretty soon he’s back to fidgeting—bouncing his leg against the car door, twiddling his thumbs, throwing occasional nervous glances at the man sitting next to him. However, Spy seems to be steadily ignoring him, instead staring straight ahead at the road as if Scout wasn’t slowly losing his mind in the passenger seat. Scout sighs, slumping down in his seat. 

“Come on man, how long’s it been?” he says. “I gotta go to the bathroom.”

“We _just_ passed a rest stop,” Spy says through gritted teeth. “You can hold it until the next one, or you can walk the rest of the way.”

Scout considers just shutting up before Spy gets pissed enough to kick him out, but it would go against his nature to do that. He was too jumpy, had too many thoughts tumbling around in his head. 

_His Ma. The other mercs. Miss Pauling…_

“I miss her,” he says, and then the words are spilling out of his mouth like a flood. “Jeez, I mean, she won’t come looking for us again, will she? Do ya think she’ll forget about me? Man, what if she was, like, The One or whatever. I frickin’ blew it, didn’t I?” and he can almost hear Spy rolling his eyes, but fuck him, he doesn’t, _couldn’t_ understand. Maybe it’s just respawn messing with his head, but ever since Scout got picked up by BLU his dreams have been permeated with gunfire and laced with visions of purple, and right before he wakes up he sees _her_ , standing in front of him, looking right at him, laughing at some funny joke he just said. Scout closes his eyes. He’ll probably never get another chance to make Miss P laugh like that again, ever, he screwed that up for real this time.

What the fuck was he supposed to do? It happened so quick. It always does. The second shit hit the fan he was out of Teufort like a spooked rabbit with sirens hot on his heels. He always hated running away, hated the feeling of being cornered and chased, ever since he was just a kid getting picked on by his brothers. He’s supposed to run _toward_ the fights, not away from them. He didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye before left. Spy, the bastard, always had a backup plan, always had an escape route ready one phone call away, ready to disappear. Only this time, he had Scout to deal with. Long story short: they’re speeding down an empty highway in the desert somewhere trying to outrun the police. And with every cop in the badlands out for their blood, it ain’t exactly a walk in the park. Scout isn’t stupid; he knows this time, getting caught would for real would be the end of the line— no respawn, no second chances. He would never admit it to Spy, but beneath all his bravado, the thought of permanent death stirs up something in him that he hadn’t felt in a long time.

Terror. 

Or is it regret?

Either way, maybe Spy begins to feel a little sorry for him because he awkwardly pats Scout on the shoulder as if to console him.

“My ma is gonna be so fucked up about this,” Scout says, tugging on the bandages around his hands. “I gotta tell her. I gotta tell her I lost my job.”

“The next pay phone we pass, you can call her,” Spy says.

Scout insists, “Yeah but I gotta see her, man. I have to go home.”

There’s a pause, and then: “Alright. Let’s go home.”

 _Home_. The word sounds wrong coming out of Spy’s mouth. It’s not like the jerk has any right to call it that, _his_ home, even if he happens to be dating his ma. He opens his mouth to make a snarky comment, but upon catching the look on the other man’s face, he stops. Spy looks tired. The corners of his eyes crease when he frowns and he’s a few days unshaven, and Scout realizes that Spy’s probably just as worried about his ma as he is. Scout turns away and stares out the window. Not much of a view; there’s nothing but sand and rocks for miles around. Maybe Spy’s getting bored of the scenery.

“Hey, I can drive instead,” Scout offers, but Spy shakes his head.

“I would only let you drive if I had the desire to wake up in a ditch somewhere by the road with a concussion.”

“Yeah, well fuck you too buddy,” Scout says, but there’s no vitriol behind it.

 

 

They pull over at a truck stop for the night. Scout finds a pay phone and calls his ma. Says he’s sorry. Promises he’ll come home and fix everything, promises to make it all up to her. He thinks it might just be his imagination, but Spy looks a little sad when he hangs up. Scout trudges back over to the car.

“Come on, turn on the radio,” he says, mostly to break the silence.

The radio’s still set to the news station where he left it earlier, and when they flip it on there’s a long beep followed by buzzing voice that says, “ _…we regret to interrupt your scheduled program to bring you this important public service announcement: the mercenary criminals of Teufort county have escaped and were last seen fleeing east. These men are believed to be armed and dangerous. Their names are—_ “ 

Scout punches the off button, eyes downcast. So much for that.

“ _C’est magnifique_ ,” Spy says softly. Scout looks up, following his gaze. He whistles.

“Would ya look at that.” 

In the pitch darkness, there are millions and millions of stars, all twinkling coldly in the night sky. This far out from the light of civilization, Scout can make out the swirls of far off galaxies, the echoing beams of long dead stars scattered across a vast blackness. He never really learned any constellations, but he thinks Miss P probably knows them all anyway. She always knows the things he doesn’t, like a perfect jigsaw of negative space. Out of the corner of his eye, a streak of light flashes across the sky.

“Hey look, a shooting star,” he says, but when he turns his head to look at Spy the man is already asleep. “Huh,” Scout says. Unconscious, Spy looks younger, less tense than he does while awake. His mask is beginning to slip down the bridge of his nose, which Scout chuckles at.

“Guess even he can’t have a stick up his ass 24/7,” he mutters, and turns back to face the stars.

 

 

It’s still dark hours later when Spy shakes him awake.

“What the hell, old man,” Scout groans, wiping sleep-drool off his chin. He’s bone-tired and half awake, but there’s something else. He didn’t dream last night.

“The law doesn’t sleep, and neither should we,” Spy says. He’s uncharacteristically disheveled, sporting dark circles under his eyes— Scout guesses he probably looks equally terrible himself. He yawns. The clock on the dashboard reads something like 4am.

“Auuuugh,” he says as Spy starts the engine.

 

 

An hour later, Spy points out that they’re running low on gas. Scout leans over to peer at the fuel gauge, and yeah, they’re damn near running on empty. 

“Aw, shit,” he says.

“The way I see it, we have two options,” says Spy measuredly. “The first is that we give up now—“ Scout snorts at this “—or we get more fuel from a gas station, which seeing as our faces are plastered on every newspaper in the county, is probably a dangerous plan.”

“Our old _jobs_ were dangerous, pal. Come on, what’re they gonna do? Call the cops?” Scout laughs. “We’ll point a gun in their freakin’ faces and tell them to shut the hell up.”

Spy raises an eyebrow. “You’re suggesting we threaten the clerk into turning on the pumps for us?”

“Sure,” Scout says, laughing tiredly. “Why the fuck not? Let’s add armed robbery to our list of crimes.”

 

 

Ironically, Spy decides to take off his mask for the event.

“That’s hilarious, old man,” Scout says. “Usually you put the ski mask _on_ when you hold up convenience stores.”

Spy rolls his eyes. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but we are currently the most wanted men in the county and the mask happens to be very recognizable,” he says with exaggerated patience.

“Yeah, yeah,” Scout says. Despite himself, he can’t help but to stare at Spy’s face, if only out of longstanding curiosity. The older man is quite distinguished, possessing a rather nice jawline, and though his hair starting to grey around the temples, Scout thinks it actually suits him. 

He wonders for a moment if Spy ever took his mask off in front of his mother. Or was Scout the first one to see his bare face? _Eugh_. He shudders and makes a mental note to never think about it again.

“We are nearing a town,” Spy says. He rests his hand on his revolver as they drive, the highway ahead narrowing into a cluster of buildings. “Prepare yourself.”

“Roger that,” Scout mutters. 

_Two men armed with guns walk into a convenience store. They only have one mask, which neither of them is wearing._

Ha. Sounds like the beginning of a terrible joke.

 

 

Luckily for them, there’s only one employee working the early morning shift in the convenience store situated at the edge of town. The cashier’s wearing a uniform complete with a hat shaped like the company mascot, a cartoon kangaroo with a perpetual _hey-I’m-kid-friendly_ grin. Scout thinks it’s kind of funny, in an absurd way, to see the guy freak out about getting robbed while wearing his company’s ridiculous hat.

“I would prefer not to make a mess, but it is only fair that I warn you: I will shoot you if you do not follow my instructions exactly,” Spy says to the cowering clerk.

“D-don’t shoot me! You can take the cash, just p-please let me live!” the guy whimpers, sinking down on his knees. As it turns out, most civilians will quickly lose their composure when threatened with guns. The nametag on the cashier’s shirt reads _Gabe_ , which Scout chortles at; yeah tough luck, Gabe, ya should’ve taken the day off, or better yet, gotten a job where you don’t have to wear a name tag and a stupid hat.

“Turn on the gas pump,” Spy instructs, while keeping his revolver trained on their hostage. “Don’t try to trigger any alarms, or you’ll get a bullet to the head.”

In response, Gabe starts to cry.

“You cannot be serious,” Spy says, sighing.

“Fuckin’ Christ,” Scout shouts over his wailing. “Spy, maybe we should—“

And all of a sudden there’s a flurry of motion that goes by too fast for Scout to react. Something slams into him, knocking him over to the floor where his head slams into the hard tile. The burst of pain hits him like a train, like a kaleidoscope of stars exploding behind his eyelids, and for some reason the first thing he thinks of through the haze of agony is _shit shit if I die here Ms. Pauling will know it was a guy wearing a kangaroo hat that did me in_ , and then on top of that he hears the sound of a gun firing and a sick wet splatter, followed by something that sounds suspiciously like air leaking out of a tire. 

“ _Merde_ ,” Spy says, somewhere over to Scout’s left.

Scout moans, rolls over, and weakly scans the area for Spy. 

“Hey… hey, what the hell just happened there?” he slurs. With great effort, he props himself up onto his elbows. “Whoa,” he says. “What the shit?”

This did not look good. The front door of the store is a mess of glass shards, blood spatter and something pink, and when Scout squints he can make out Gabe lying just outside in the parking lot where there’s a pool of blood quickly forming. 

“Oh no. Ohhhh no, shit shit shit,” Scout says, panic rising up in this throat. “Spy, did you just shoot our tire?” He tries to sit up, but then there’s Spy’s kneeling over him, gently pushing him back down.

“Yes, our car is gone,” Spy affirms. “The hostage pushed you and then tried to make a run for it. I stopped him, but the shot ricocheted.”

“Dude, his freakin’ _brains_ are all over the front windows, holy shit,” he says, and he’s probably babbling but it’s hard to focus when he’s busy cringing at the throbbing pain in his skull.

“Stop moving so much, you may have a concussion,” Spy says seriously, pressing delicate touches to Scout’s head. He’s cradling Scout’s head and neck, probably checking for wounds.

“I don’t think I’m concussed,” Scout mumbles. “The glass… I probably just got cut...” And Spy’s saying something else, but he’s not really paying attention because from this angle the florescent lights are like a soft halo around Spy’s head, and yeah, he’s still an old bastard but Spy has really nice eyes when he’s looking all concerned at him like that, and his hands are cool on Scout’s forehead and all he can think is _Well I can kind of see now why my ma likes him_. Before he knows it, he’s leaning up and forward to press his lips against Spy’s, and it's not a real kiss in the sense of the word, all bumping foreheads and noses and teeth and it’s awkward and terrible and Spy makes a startled noise which makes Scout break away to laugh.

“ _You are concussed_ ,” Spy says forcefully, wiping his mouth. “ _What the hell is wrong with you_?”

“It’s just,” Scout says a little helplessly, “The police probably heard that gunshot and they’re gonna come, and when they see the goddamn brains on the front door they ain’t gonna go for the peaceful approach, ya know?” He grins droopily at Spy. “I never thought I’d die in New fuckin’ Mexico,” and then he’s dissolving into giggles again, dropping his head onto Spy’s lap.

“Ugh, I am never doing this again with you,” Spy says, but he doesn’t let go.

Well, that was a thing. The police are already on their way but they don’t matter, not really, Scout thinks. They’re gonna put their hands up and surrender when they come. He knows in his gut that he’s still got time to get back home; Spy would probably tell him to stop being so dramatic, but they started this, damn it, and they’re gonna finish it if it’s the last thing he does. It’s the one thing he’s sure about. God, he just wants to go to sleep, right here on the dirty linoleum with Spy hovering over him like an unamused mother hen. He wants to sleep and dream of purple again, wants to run and play baseball and hug his ma so, so badly. 

Spy’s humming and there are sirens in the distance, steadily growing in volume. Scout turns his head towards the storefront windows, and damn, ain’t that a sight. Sunrise in the desert. The sun is just starting to peek over the dusty horizon, painting the sky a soft orange-pink, and fuck if it isn’t the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his whole goddamn life.

“Put your gun away,” Scout says to Spy.

They’re not giving up; they’ll just have to take the long way home.


End file.
